August 21, 2011

Exclusive: Kiruv Organization Photoshops Sleeves In, Breasts Out

Jewpiter, a kiruv (ultra-Orthodox Jewish missionary or outreach) organization geared to college students, decided to give a model a more 'modest' dress – and significantly smaller breasts and buttocks.

Originally published at 11:29 pm 8-20-11.

All images can be clicked to enlarge.

The stock photo:

The stock photo after Jewpiter retouched it. Note the smaller breasts and the crop to cut off part of the buttocks and thereby make them look less round:

Jewpiter is a followup program – a "rewards" program, as Jewpiter bills it – to Birthright, which gives college age Jews a free structured trip to Israel.

Birthright trips range from the completely secular to heavily ultra-Orthodox.

Jewpiter 'pays' students for learning Torah through its specified ultra-Orthodox programs. The 'payments' can later be used to get a heavily discounted (or, sometimes, free) return trip to Israel:

jewpiter is an innovative incentive program designed to give Jewish students the chance to ‘learn’ their way towards a highly subsidized trip to Israel. By earning5,000 jewpiter‘miles’ through a mix-and-match combo of phone-based learning, as well as online study, campus/community-based lectures, and Shabbatons, members become eligible for a scholarship towards an “immersion trip” to Israel. Hundreds of college students have already signed up.

By earning5,000 jewpiter‘miles’ through a mix-and-match combo of phone-based learning, as well as online study, campus/community-based lectures, and Shabbatons, members become eligible for a scholarship towards an “immersion trip” to Israel. [emphasis added]

An "immersion trip" is an indoctrination trip to ultra-Orthodox kiruv yeshivas like Ohr Somayach for men and Neve Yerushalayim for women.

Students will do some structured day trips, but most of their time is spent in an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva.

Does Jewpiter's website mention this salient fact?

Of course not.

The closest it comes to telling the truth is this:

RETURN.

Use your jewpiter miles to travel to Israel for free*!

*Trips includes airfare, room, board and applicable tuition. Maximum jewpiter reward is $500 per student. Students will be responsible for partial payment in the event that applicable program subsidies combined with the $500 jewpiter reward does not amount to total trip cost.

The balance of the money for those trips is either paid for by ultra-Orthodox kiruv yeshivas, related programs connected to those yeshivas, or, in the case of less promising recruits or in time of financial hardship, probably by the recruit himself or herself.

Worse yet, these kiruv yeshivas try to keep kids in Israel and in their yeshiva, and they actively discourage some students from returning to the US.

Despite the appearance given by the above photograph, Partners in Torah and the ultra-Orthodox yeshivas it works with are not Zionist, and most of the time these kids will be in yeshiva, not marching in a parade or hiking in the Golan Heights.

Jewpiter is a good idea.

But it has been misused. Like most ultra-Orthodox outreach, it is deceptive and unethical.

Jewpiter looks like it might be on hiatus due to the financial crisis.

Perhaps when it resumes, Partners in Torah can fix Jewpiter's promotional materials and its website to remove deception.

[Hat Tip for noticing the photoshoped sleeves and finding the original stock photo: Mamzer HaKodesh.]

Here are all the pages of Jewpiter's website as PDF files. The Overview page returns a 404 error, as you can see in the screenshot posted below:

Breast reductio for cosmetic reasons, is halachically as bad as getting as getting a tattoo.
Maybe the rabbi gave her smaller tits to make her look more like a boy - the preferable ultra orthodox hole.

Absolutely. The frumma are going completely off the derech. They won't work and they won't fight (in Israel, in IDF) so they have far too much time on their hands and so their thoughts turn to Avodah Zorah (e.g. Rebbe Worship, creation of new laws such as deletion or reduction of breasts in images).

I have met many of these kids and the idea is to hopefully teach them something about Yiddishkeit. Does it bother you that they may become frum thru this program??? If it does, why? I've seen dozens of students from similar programs that are now totally frum- Married , working and raising beautful Jewish families.

Breast reduction for medical reasons would be fine. I am mixed feelings about these fruma kiruv places. I have family members who are completely intermarried and out of the practicing Jewish mode completely.

If they had gone on such a trip they could have been perhaps moved to marry A Jewish person and retain Jewish practices.

I do also have my doubts about the big Aishes of the world. I am conflicted on this issue.

Adam: Many Jews are looking for spirituality. I would rather they find it in the Jewish tradition than elsewhere. However kiruv movements use emotional manipulation, deceptive tactics, and intellectual dishonesty. Furthermore, they think chareidi Judaism is the only form of Judaism. (I was involved in NCSY as a teen, ostensibly a Modern Orthodox outfit, but Lanner encouraged kids to ape the Chareidim and go to Chareidi yeshivot. This despite him touting himself as a talmid of Rabbi Soloveitchik.)

On the bright side this is a Chareidi publication still publishing photos of women (even if they are photoshopped to look boy-ish). I don't like it at all but it's still preferable to a photo where the woman (i.e. Hillary Clinton) is photoshopped out altogether. I'm sort of hoping Michele Bachman becomes President only to see what creative ideas those publications will come up with. So far I've seen a waving American flag to represent her in one such publication...

The BT movement and its yeshivas and seminaries has always been more about money than kiruv. Many sincere BTs have been turned away from seminaries like Neve Yerushalayim because of lack of tuition. It is not enough for these BT institutions to bleed students, they also bilk parents and other relatives for gelt.

On the bright side this is a Chareidi publication still publishing photos of women (even if they are photoshopped to look boy-ish). I don't like it at all but it's still preferable to a photo where the woman (i.e. Hillary Clinton) is photoshopped out altogether. I'm sort of hoping Michele Bachman becomes President only to see what creative ideas those publications will come up with. So far I've seen a waving American flag to represent her in one such publication...

Posted by: njprincess | August 21, 2011 at 10:49 AM

This is a KIRUV organization.

Kiruv ogs always use pictures of women – especially attractive women – because they are trying to lure women and men into their programs.

regarding Kiruv organizations and use of women in pictures, posted by Shmarya
(sorry I dont know how to bold comments in this comment box as you did).
I will defer to your expertise on this as I am not a target audience for Kiruv orgs so I don't usually read their materials. The only ones whose materials I regularly see are both out of Lakewood - Shalom something with the annual raffle (no women I believe) and the world famous Oorah which as far as I can tell used to use women - with a stated heter - but lately has switched to postage stamps size pics that presumably have women. I give it another year maybe two before the women, even the microscopic ones are gone. Of course Oorah is not trying to lure women - just their school age daughters and sons to Chareidi schools and camps.

Um, lets see: a public relations religious outreach organization photoshops a photo to use in an advertisement. Now that is some poignant news ya gots there! Now if this can't bring a chuckle to the humor challenged then I just don't know what to do for such a dour crowd.

I agree with the criticism on the misleading nature of the advertising, but harping on the Photoshop weakens your case--there's nothing wrong in this day and age with changing a picture for advertising.

Just one more example of the rampant immature sexuality among the ultra orthodox. Looking at a picture, and experiencing "impure thoughts" aka a hard-on is the purview of 12 year-old boys, not mature and intelligent men.

Also marks the last time you gave a penny of your own to a charitable cause (I have heard on good authority)or did anything positive or meaningful for another person. You could die tomorrow and no one would miss you.

It seems to me that the lion's share of the hateful comments regarding this post would have never existed if the author had simply emailed Partners in Torah with the curious question: "Dude, what's with the photo-shop on the girl?" Obviously, this was not done, so let me take a moment and give an alternative perspective to the dozens and dozens of variantly mean and speculative comments above.

a. The photo was photo-shopped to adapt the image to reflect the sensitivities of many of our site visitors with respect to Jewish law. For these reasons, black sleeves and a neck-line were added to the stock image. This is a complete non-crime.

For those who took us to task for not photo-shopping well, all I can say is: go ahead, get a big protest placard, stand outside the Agudah offices, and write on your placard -- “Frum people do not know how to use the graphic program, Photo-shop very well!”

b. Regarding her chest, the reason was all-together a different one. The graphic artist adjusted the image so that the large logo "Jewpiter" would be most prominent and fit with the stock image and its background. If her chest had not been adjusted, then the J of the logo's lettering would begin a good deal closer to her chest than would any other letter of the logo to its nearest surroundings. This would have drawn the eye, and been a distraction to the purpose of the homepage. That the area in question is her chest adds to the distraction. Halacha aside, it did not look good. That is the entirety of it.

Those who intuit in our efforts other intentions are mistaken. If not for the "J" issue, the stock photo would have been left as is. It's likely that another professional graphic artist, acting without a sensitivity to Jewish law, may have solved the proximity issue the same way, that is unless their intentions were to exploit the image in a sexist manner by EMPHASIZING the proximity of our logo to her chest. So in keeping score, I guess our second non-crime is -- trying hard not to be lewd.

For those out there who decry this adjustment in her form per se, please clickie-poo on the following Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_manipulation. The sum of what I’ve learned regarding these issues is that in photo-journalism, it’s a clear ethical breach; when it comes to marketing and advertizing, it’s an art-from. Go figure.

c. Regarding the rest of the posting, it's pretty much utterly and completely wrong in its central accusation -- "college kids forced to do Orthodox things, and then hoodwinked to sit in yeshiva all day long". There are several reasons. I'll list just a few.

- Firstly, nearly all Jewpiter people had an approved trip in mind when they first began their Jewpiter "earning". This was because nearly every Jewpiter participant came to the site at the suggestion of an organizer of one of those approved trips! In this respect, the students saw the program as a great opportunity to help them achieve their goals of going on their most favored trip.

- Second, qualifying for Jewpiter points could be done in several ways, among them: attending an Israel rally on campus (for or against!), attending ANY Hillel event, making a Youtube clip praising their Israel Birthright trip -- WHATEVER TRIP that was! Our intention was to help college kids get back to Israel by rewarding them for their Jewish activity back on campus. For instance, we gave credit for attending ANY advertised Shabbat meal on campus. Even the one on one learning the student was required to do as part of qualifying allowed the student to choose WHATEVER Jewish topic they wanted to learn, e.g. learning hebrew for instance!

As can be seen, we gave Jewpiter credit for many, many activities that were not "Orthodox". The claim that the activities the students did to get points were "specified ultra-orthodox programs" is just plain false. It was a wildly popular program, and even now, a few years out from its being put on hold due to funding, we still have 40 students working through the system and earning points! Students loved it because it let them choose the activities they might do to qualify.

- Third, most of the approved trips involved no yeshiva or seminary learning at all! Period. Zippie-poo. They were hiking, hearing politicians, rappelling, doing the whole mud-bath thing, shopping. All of them had some learning as part of the trip, but that was usually limited to a class or two each day while having lunch overlooking the Dead Sea, or at their hotel, etc.

So as can be seen the posting is not accurate.

While suggesting the blog's author could have chosen to be slightly dan l'caf zcus of Jewpiter regarding the homepage might seem to go against the very ethos of FailedMessiah, it does seem odd that the basic secular standards of journalistic integrity learned in a Junior High School's newsletter project were not used; this is super unfortunate. Why did this happen?

Here is my answer, and I acknowledge it is speculative. In that the post cites no student's testimony, no actual trip or program, no quote from anyone ever associated or with personal knowledge of the program, nor any detail to back up its claims -- and in that the poster failed to check with Partners in Torah about any of the content in the post, leaves me with two options for why it was posted:

a. It was a willful act to demean.

b. It was a deep-rooted cry from the soul of the author that the Jewish people ALWAYS act in the most glorious ways, and that cry -- upon seeing a perceived injustice -- blew past the normative intellectual screens that regulate our actions.

I can understand both because I’ve done both myself on occasion. I'm going to go with b though as my final answer, and I give credit to the yearnings of that soul for trying to improve the world. In my view, that soul has never given up on its desire to become a Rabbi.

I quote your website where it is exceeding clear what the makeup of activities to earn points is, and what the "free" trips are.

Your program is deceptive. It is meant to trick kids, get them into yeshivas and, whenever possible, out of college.

As for your remarks about graphic design, they may fly with people who haven't worked in the field or done any graphic design. But for those of us who have, we know there are other, better ways that "J" problem could have been handled.

In fact, a cynic might say that you chose that image especially because of where the J would be in relationship to her breasts and only corrected it after the fact, after someone questioned you about it.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of stock photos to choose from. You were not confined to this one choice.

And your cropping of her buttocks was in no way necessary for your logo to work.

lol. Even with all the edits, how is this an appropriate picture for a religious advertisement or website? Making her breasts smaller is truly insane, but even having a "touched up" photo with sleeves on it does not make a girl posing like this an appropriate logo for a supposedly religious site. How stupid can people be?

You wouldn't know truth if it hit you square on your ass. I know MUCH more about you than you realize.

Your hatred for all things religious makes you twist the truth until it become a your invention entirely... We all know your blog is cheap, mean trash from a tiny deranged person.

What once began as a cause has long since become an obsession to you, to give meaning to your pathetic meaningless life..obese fat slob living in his mothers basement..stewing in his own bile and poison. LOL

You have become the exact cartoon of a JEW that you hate so much.

Every entry I read on your blog, I picture your pathetic worthless ass spilling over the sides of the chair, convincing yourself your are doing something worthwhile.

You are the fraud you accuse everyone else of being. A very average JEW, ripping other Jews. Nazi, Anti-Semites, and Islamic publications copy and paste and "Favorite" your blog.